Justin Martyr

ST. JUSTIN MARTYR THE DISCOURSE TO THE GREEKS

CHAPTER I.--JUSTIN JUSTIFIES HIS DEPARTURE FROM GREEK CUSTOMS.

Do not suppose, ye Greeks, that my separation from your customs is
unreasonable and unthinking; for I found in them nothing that is holy or
acceptable to God. For the very compositions of your poets are monuments of
madness and intemperance. For any one who becomes the scholar of your most
eminent instructor, is more beset by difficulties than all men besides. For
first they say that Agamemnon, abetting the extravagant lust of his brother, and
his madness and unrestrained desire, readily gave even his daughter to be
sacrificed, and troubled all Greece that he might rescue Helen, who had been
ravished by the leprous shepherd. But when in the course of the war they took
captives, Agamemnon was himself taken captive by Chryseis, and for Briseis' sake
kindled a feud with the son of Thetis. And Pelides himself, who crossed the
river, overthrew Troy, and subdued Hector, this your hero became the slave of
Polyxena, and was conquered by a dead Amazon; and putting off the god-fabricated
armour, and donning the hymeneal robe, he became a sacrifice of love in the
temple of Apollo. And the Ithacan Ulysses made a virtue of a vice. And indeed
his sailing past the Sirens gave evidence that he was destitute of worthy
prudence, because he could not depend on his prudence for stopping his ears.
Ajax, son of Telamon, who bore the shield of sevenfold ox-hide, went mad when he
was defeated in the contest with Ulysses for the amour. Such things I have no
desire to be instructed in. Of such virtue I am not covetous, that I should
believe the myths of Homer. For the whole rhapsody, the beginning and end both
of the Iliad and the Odyssey is--a woman.

CHAPTER II.--THE GREEK THEOGONY EXPOSED.

But since, next to Homer, Hesiod wrote his Works and Days, who will believe
his drivelling theogony? For they say that Chronos, the son of Ouranos, in the
beginning slew his father, and possessed himself of his rule; and that, being
seized with a panic lest he should himself suffer in the same way, he preferred
devouring his children; but that, by the craft of the Curetes, Jupiter was
conveyed away and kept in secret, and afterwards bound his father with chains,
and divided the empire; Jupiter receiving, as the story goes, the air, and
Neptune the deep, and Pluto the portion of Hades. But Pluto ravished Proserpine;
and Ceres sought her child wandering through the deserts. And this myth was
celebrated in the Eleusinian fire. Again, Neptune ravished Melanippe when she
was drawing water, besides abusing a host of Nereids not a few, whose names,
were we to recount them, would cost us a multitude of words. And as for Jupiter,
he was a various adulterer, with Antiope as a satyr, with Danae as gold, and
with Europa as a bull; with Leda, moreover, he assumed wings. For the love of
Semele proved both his unchastity and the jealousy of Semele. And they say that
he carried off the Phrygian Ganymede to be his cup-bearer. These, then, are the
exploits of the sons of Saturn. And your illustrious son of Latona [Apollo], who
professed soothsaying, convicted himself of lying. He pursued Daphne, but did
not gain possession of her; and to Hyacinthus, who loved him, he did not
foretell his death. And I say nothing of the masculine character of Minerva, nor
of the feminine nature of Bacchus, nor of the fornicating disposition of Venus.
Read to Jupiter, ye Greeks, the law against parricides, and the penalty of
adultery, and the ignominy of paederasty. Teach Minerva and Diana the works of
women, and Bacchus the works of men. What seemliness is there in a woman's
girding herself with armour, or in a man's decorating himself with cymbals, and
garlands, and female attire, and accompanied by a herd of bacchanalian women?

CHAPTER III.--FOLLIES OF THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

For Hercules, celebrated by his three nights, sung by the poets for his
successful labours, the son of Jupiter, who slew the lion and destroyed the
many-headed hydra; who put to death the fierce and mighty boar, and was able to
kill the fleet man-eating birds, and brought up from Hades the three-headed dog;
who effectually cleansed the huge Augean building from its dung, and killed the
bulls and the stag whose nostrils breathed fire, and plucked the golden fruit
from the tree, and slew the poisonous serpent (and for some reason, which it is
not lawful to utter, killed Achelous, and the guest-slaying Busiris), and
crossed the mountains that he might get water which gave forth an articulate
speech, as the story goes: he who was able to do so many and such like and so
great deeds as these, how childishly he was delighted to be stunned by the
cymbals of the satyrs, and to be conquered by the love of woman, and to be
struck on the hips by the laughing Lyda! And at last, not being able to put off
the tunic of Nessus, himself kindling his own funeral pile, so he died. Let
Vulcan lay aside his envy, and not be jealous if he is hated because he is old
and club-footed, and Mars loved, because young and beautiful. Since, therefore,
ye Greeks, your gods are convicted of intemperance, and your heroes are
effeminate, as the histories on which your dramas are founded have declared,
such as the curse of Atreus, the bed of Thyestes and the taint in the house of
Pelops, and Danaus murdering through hatred and making AEgyptus childless in the
intoxication of his rage, and the Thyestean banquet spread by the Furies. And
Procne is to this day flitting about, lamenting; and her sister of Athens
shrills with her tongue cut out. For what need is there of speaking of the goad
of OEdipus, and the murder of Laius, and the marrying his mother, and the mutual
slaughter of those who were at once his brothers and his sons?

CHAPTER IV.--SHAMELESS PRACTICES OF THE GREEKS.

And your public assemblies I have come to hate. For there are excessive
banquetings, and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, and useless
and luxurious anointings, and crowning with garlands. With such a mass of evils
do you banish shame; and ye fill your minds with them, and are carried away by
intemperance, and indulge as a common practice in wicked and insane fornication.
And this further I would say to you, why are you, being a Greek, indignant at
your son when he imitates Jupiter, and rises against you and defrauds you of
your own wife? Why do you count him your enemy, and yet worship one that is like
him? And why do you blame your wife for living in unchastity, and yet honour
Venus with shrines? If indeed these things had been related by others, they
would have seemed to be mere slanderous accusations, and not truth. But now your
own poets sing these things, and your histories noisily publish them.

CHAPTER V.--CLOSING APPEAL.

Henceforth, ye Greeks, come and partake of incomparable wisdom, and be
instructed by the Divine Word, and acquaint yourselves with the King immortal;
and do not recognise those men as heroes who slaughter whole nations. For our
own Ruler, the Divine Word, who even now constantly aids us, does not desire
strength of body and beauty of feature, nor yet the high spirit of earth's
nobility, but a pure soul, fortified by holiness, and the watchwords of our
King, holy actions, for through the Word power passes into the soul. O trumpet
of peace to the soul that is at war! O weapon that puttest to flight terrible
passions! O instruction that quenches the innate fire of the soul! The Word
exercises an influence which does not make poets: it does not equip philosophers
nor skilled orators, but by its instruction it makes mortals immortal, mortals
gods; and from the earth transports them to the realms above Olympus. Come, be
taught; become as I am, for I, too, was as ye are. These have conquered me--the
divinity of the instruction, and the power of the Word: for as a skilled
serpent-charmer lures the terrible reptile from his den and causes it to flee,
so the Word drives the fearful passions of our sensual nature from the very
recesses of the soul; first driving forth lust, through which every ill is
begotten--hatreds, strife, envy, emulations, anger, and such like. Lust being
once banished, the soul becomes calm and serene. And being set free from the
ills in which it was sunk up to the neck, it returns to Him who made it. For it
is fit that it be restored to that state whence it departed, whence every soul
was or is.